A survivor's guide to the sustainable city

June 09, 2012

Were the Jubilee Celebrations a success? How significant was the bad weather?

Canaletto's famous paqinting of the Thames on Lord Mayors Day

Now that we're all back to work, the barriers have been cleared away and the Union Jack bunting are beginning to look a bit tattered, I decided to ruminate on how successful the whole event was and to ask a few wider questions about public events and urban design. It's a sad fact that more regimented states tend to do pageants rather better than we do. When Haussmann designed Paris, he prescribed wide boulevards to facilitate the charge of a brigade of cavalry at angry demonstrators. Red Square in Moscow was safeguarded from development because of its use as a suitably broad canvas for the mighty USSR to display its hardwear. We did have HMS Belfast boom out a couple of shots, but unless you count a very warlike canoo of Maoris, most of the flotilla displayed a peaceful nation.Firstly, I think the river was a great idea, but the Thames is a rough, windy, tidal estury, not a litling backwater like the Venetian lagoons. Secondly, it is very large and very wide, so even quite big ships look a bit puny. I think that even the famous Canaletto painting enlarged the boats for picturesque effect.

People who queued in the rain, watched in the rain and walked home in the rain might have been able to congratulate themselves on their British bulldog grit. But if we do it agin what changes should we make?

The real lesson is that large spaces do not make the best arenas for pagents. The most exciting parade I've ever witnessed is the Semana Santa in Lorca, in the south of Spain. This runs for about a kilometre or two along the narrow main street of the city, which is flanked on both sides by appartment blocks, each side being about eight stories high. They place temporary seating on each side of the street, and you have to get tickets to view. However thousands of people can get a seat, and of course every balcony of the appartments is packed. (There's no queuing needed. it's just like getting a ticket to the opera.)

As this image so colourfully demonstrates, they race down the street in dangerous horse drawn carriages, parade racheros on dancing steeds and massed bands of hooded monks, throng to the sound of horns, antique blunderbusses and drums. The buildings ricochet with the sound. You are right in the thick of the parade, almost swept up by the throng and definitely frightened when the dancing horses goes through their paces.

What makes it all work so well, is the constraint of the space. That is, I think, why the Mall concert worked so well. Someone actually sat down and designed the Buck House Arena - a chap called Robbie Williams I gather - who cut his teeth designing stage sets for pop bands. What he realised is that external space seems smaller than internal space. So that when you want to stage any sort of performance out of doors you have to constrain the space, not expand it.

Just think of the most famous public spectacle of all, the Palio, that surges through the narrow streets of Siena every summer. Its fast, its constrained, its colourful, noisy and it's a horse race. Perhaps Her Majesty, with her well known penchance for the sport of kings, might have preferred something like that?

February 15, 2012

Yesterday I took part in an interesting debate at the Town and Country Planning Association, ( TCPA ) as a member of the Garden Cities and Suburbs Expert Group. There's a publication planned later in the year and I'll include a link in this blog as soon as the results are published. The aim of the exercise is to identify ways of bringing forward new 21st century garden cities, which are green, comprehensively planned and high quality.

The discussion got me thinking about the size of such settlements. Is there a sustainable size?

The eco-towns initiative selected 5,000 homes - about 12,000 population - as the minimum sustainable size. The programme also recommended that some settlements could be as large as 10,000 - 15,000 homes, which would equate to a maximum population of about 40,000 people - the same size as Canterbury. I understand that this scale was fixed becasue it was considered size enough to create the economies of scale needed to finance new infrastructure.

Similarly the New Towns Programme sought to develop new settelements of approximately 50,000 people over ten years. In spite of extraordinary powers of land assembly and development, and in spite of continuous large scale public funding through the recessions of the 70's, the final population growth attributable to the New Towns Programme was less than planned (and achieved more slowly than planned.) By 1991 the actual growth was about 1.4million as opposed to the target of 2m. ( Transferable Lessons from New Towns Programme)

However amongst the new towns generated by the programme are winners and losers. Failing estates in Cumbernauld near Glasgow have since been largely demolished, while Milton Keynes has expanded to become a successful city and a unitary authority with a population of over 200,000. There were about 50,000 population within the original 89km2 of designated land.

Looking back its easy to see why Milton Keynes, less than 50 miles from London, on a motorway and on main line rail link would do better at attracting development than Cumbernauld. Having said that Cumbernauld did continue to grow and now has almost reached the planned population of 50,000. In fact it's become quite succesful on its own terms, benfiting fin recent years from a surge of new businesses including Isola-Werke, OKI, Yaskawa Electronics and the worldwide HQ of AG Barr, who make the popular soft drink Irn-Bru.

So it would be too simplistic to conclude that size is the only thing that matters in developing sustainable locations.

It is often an accident of fate that creates the conditions for sustainable growth. Montpellier in France grew first as a result of an influx of North Africans, who were dispossessed by the Algerian wars. Instead of seeing this influx negatively, the city fathers of Montpellier started an ambitious growth programme which has seen the Agglomeration (the wider regional area) grow to a population of over 500,000. A city of this size is large enough to have developed a tram system, an opera house and can boast a glittering array of first division sports teams including League 1 football, rugby, hand-ball, ice hockey and even water polo. Sports are important for a young city like Montpellier.

In the 80's Montpellier was able to create a whole new central district with shops, offices, a swimming pool, mediatheque and a new 2000 seat opera house, funded on the back of its meteoric expansion. Designed mainly by RIcardo Bofil in a post modern style it has now blended well. The area is mainly pedestrianised, designed on a grand scale and fed by trams which form a web which now links all the suburbs to the centre. Photo Wendy Shillam

In considering the options, I can't think of many functions that are essential for an eco-development. Good communications are important - but there are hundreds of village railway stations all over the country, where expansions might take place. There are hundreds of suburbs with already good public transport that could be extended. There are hundreds of towns and villages which might link very well to a nearby centre of industry or commerce. In these locations a little ingenuity could improve the access with a bus, a water bus or even - as in Portland Oregon - with a cable car.

The futuristic cable car which connects an existing employment area on the hillside to Portland Oregon's new riverside development area. Photo Wendy Shillam

There are suggestions that district heating or vacuum recycling systems are essential elements and these rely not just on quantity, but also on density. But I would argue that they are not essential and do not form part of the critical considerations. In fact the more I look into the benefits of district wide systems them more concerned I am that they might not add to sustainability, but in fact reduce it.

Masdar, the Norman Foster designed eco-city in UAE is only going to be 40,000 population, we understand. (I'm not sure if that includesthe student population of the planned university.) They envisage a very high density walled city and underneath a mass of infrastructure. However the city is only 17 air conditioned tram miles away from Abu Dhabi, so the eco-city itself need not be self sustaining - it has a capital city on its doorstep.

Masdar city - courtesy of masdar city websiteSomething in this image reminds me of the miss guided pedestrian separated designs for Cumbernauld, where underpasses and streets in the sky had eventually to be demolished. Even in Milton Keynes the designers carefully separated cycles, cars and buses,making it now almost impossible to provide the city with an efficient public transport system.

The antithesis of these mega cities (in population but not in ambition) is the host of self starting eco-villages that have begun to grow up all over the world.

One of the new eco-houses in abundance Iowa. Courtesy abundance eco-village.com

The eco-village of Abundance is planned for a population, not of 70,000 but for barely 70 souls who have elected to live off grid and in much smaller houses, in the wilds of Iowa. "Their beer is cold; their showers are hot," says eco entrepreneur Ken Walton, who started the village. But these houses use a tenth of the fuel of conventional US housing. Abundance Eco-village

If you look on the internet, you will find hundreds of these small communities trying to do their own thing, all over the world. (Though few can boast such sophisticated house designs as Abundance.) LIke all early adopters they are fueled as much by religious or ecological fervour as by gas or electricity. But they are solving problems, designing solutions and living much more simply than the rest of us. International directory of eco-villages

So perhaps we should not become obsessed by relationships between size and sustainability. A small hamlet can survive off grid, on an agro-economy, a medium sized development can run a district heating system and survive on local businesses and its agricultural hinterland and larger towns, say over 50,000 can be more independent. But from my experience even the larger towns work better if there is already some local advantage, be it a rail link, a large existing employer some natural benefit, like availability of hydro-electricity, abundant sunshine or geo-thermal potential.

But there is another question more difficult to answer. Montpellier's example shows that continued growth is good for a local economy. So how fast should we develop and once commenced, is there a governing maximum size for a city? THat will be the subject of a future post, but in the mean time if you want more ideas I can recommend, http://gen.ecovillage.org/ecovillages/4pillarsofsustainability.html which has a very good article on the wider (social, cultural and economic) dimensions of an eco-village.

February 13, 2012

This is a picture of Lucca in Italy. It is one of the most perfect examples of a preserved medieval town centre. Urban planners love it because its almost archetypal in layout. There is a central square with a church, a tight network of (we hope) busy streets and a 'cordon sanitaire' of parkland around the edge, which was once protection against invaders and now demarcates very precisely the area that tourists visit.

Its still a charming town today - for tourists. But how economically successful is it?

I was reminded of Lucca when I read about the furore that has been caused by the recent suggestions, not least by TV guru, Mary Portas, that the High Street is dead. The suggestion is that the retail area should contract and the rest should be given over to housing - relaxing planning codes and getting life into the town centres. I don't wholly disagree with the suggestion. Portas recognises that Town Centres are about more than shopping. It is the prevailing assumption that town centre = retail, and nothing else, that worries me.

Traditionally town centres were the centre of all types of commerce, and I use that word in its widest sense. Commerce isn't just buying and selling goods. Commerce should also be about the exchange of ideas, cultures, rumours, favours and - most importantly - employment. That is why the out of town shopping centre, or even the town centre shopping mall is almost always a mind-numbingly dull experience. Yes you can buy clothes and shoes, but is there a place to sit and chat with your neighbours, is there a theatre or even a bookshop?

All the other town centre functions like civic management, offices, theatres, education - you name it - they've moved to the bypass. Even Cambridge University has been steadily developing out of town for the last twenty years, to such an extent that the bicycle clutter is disappearing. Students need cars, like everybody else now, if they are to get to their labs several miles outside town.

One of the reasons that I call my blog coffee in the square is because of a realisation that town centres are as much about meeting your friends and colleagues over coffee than they are about shopping. In fact, in a bid to reduce my consumption I rarely frequent the high street these days - even though I live five minutes from Oxford Street. I'd much prefer to mooch around Soho, with its independent shops, galleries, cafes and studios than slog through the crowds visiting the high street chains.

The simplification of high street commerce has got to such a point that very few towns have independant retailers anymore.Yet, all the great high street brands that we know and love started off somewhere as independants. It's a fact of life that the vast majority of our consumption is with the high street retailers. If you don't believe me just look at what you are wearing today - I'll bet most of you will be wearing high street brands, down to your socks!

But is it chicken or egg? Do we buy from the high street because they have pushed out all the other functions, or have we only got high street brands because we never shopped anywhere else?

A friend of mine went out for lunch is Phoenix the other day. He related his dismay when, instead of stopping at some down-town haunt their hosts car drew up at a mall. They were pleased to get a window seat at the restaurant, the food was excellent, the company stimulating. But what was the window view? It was the car park! (So much for cultural richness.)

Travelling everywhere by car isn't just costly in carbon terms. A car based society is socially divided. It is in walkable city centres that rich and poor, foreign and native meet on equal terms. I would maintain that the ability to meet your fellow citizens on equal terms is one of the tenets of civilisation. How else do ideas travel; how else do people learn to empathise with those less or more fortunate than themselves?

We all understand that a car based society excludes the underprivileged. But I would question whether this hatred of bankers, this suspicion of politicians isn't also because we just never meet them face to face. How often do we see snippets of TV news footage of the privileged speeding away from the camera inside a nice car? John Major is credited in winning the 1992 election because he got up on a soap box, to deliver his speeches. But the real benefit to his campaign was that he got down amongst ordinary people, who responded by believing in him as an ordinary human being and not a party grandee.

So I would advise town centres to be cautious of heeding Mary Portas's advice, to turn those secondary shopping streets into housing. I think, even though she mentions them in her report, she's forgotten all the other reasons for town centres to exist. Her twenty eight recommendations are very retailer focused. Of course we should be looking at widening the retail offer, but Local Authorities should be more pro-active in introducing offices, studies, cafes, pubs, theaters, libraries, colleges and civic centres. The real win would be for one of the favoured pilot towns to move its offices from the ring road, back into the town centre.

February 01, 2012

Hats off to Terry Farrell for challenging some of the perceived truths about travel and communications and for questioning Foster's Thames island airport proposal.

In an article in Planning in London he argues that big ideas, like the new airport, are expensive and take a long while to come on-stream, while smaller projects can solve the problem in the short term, without compromising the big idea. He calls it incremental planning and I'm sure he's got a point.

He's also to be applauded for putting forward a very neat solution for increasing access to Heathrow by linking the check-ins to a new High Speed 1 and 2 interchange at Old Oak Common. When I was doing a masterplan for Swindon more than ten years ago we were told that there would soon be check-ins at Hayes to link Heathrow directly to the West Country Lines and to the Reading-Swindon Silicon Vale. That never happened. Though it was a condition of the construction of Terminal 5 to reduce car access to the airport I see no signs that this has worked.

But I think both Farrell and Foster are missing something in their future gazing. The premise of both schemes is that air travel will continue to grow. This assumption should be questioned.

I was advising the Gatwick Diamond Development team the other day. They almost fell off their chairs when I asked the question, "What if air travel decreases in the future?" But it's a question we should be asking.

Air travel is one of the most carbon extravagant things we can do. Just one trip to the USA every year will cancel out any benefit you gain from living in a state of the art eco-house (1). As carbon taxes kick-in then air travel will be hit more than most. As governments expand the high speed rail system around the UK and Europe, more and more people will (I hope) decide to go by train. That option just isn't here at the moment. It could well be that internal flights become prohibitively expensive. And I'm never convinced that a jerky flight between close locations isn't the mugs way of travelling anyway. Show me a comfy carriage and a view of the countryside any day and I'll show you a place where I can work, send emails and relax!

The assumptions are that everything will always get bigger. This is the sub-text of Terry Farrell's article. But I just don't think that an unfetteredincrease in air travel is either desireable or inevitable. If you work on policies to reduce air travel to the minimum and increase travel by other means (good old modal shift), then the projects that government needs to support would be quite different.

All that money could be spent on a series of smaller interventions, including the Old Oak Common interchange, and would mean spreading the benefitsto a wider public. Even though Mayor Boris Johnson supports the airport scheme, his opponent, Ken Livingstone does not. With mayoral elections coming up this spring, we may find that Farrells solutions will curry favour with a new administration.

The clincher for me is that it's easier to get twenty smaller schemes on the go than one big one. Given the history of developing airports in this country, anyone who puts all their regeneration eggs into an airport basket is in my view - just that - a basket case!

I think we can be pretty sure that world populations will continue to rise. The need for travel and communications will also rise, but whether that has to be linked to air travel is not definite. For starters lets try to encourage people not to take internal flights, but to travel by train instead.

1. BioRegional assessments of occupants in BedZed found that those who travelled by air cancelled out the benefits of the housing.

January 23, 2012

I suppose it should be no surprise that The Centre for Cities has brought out some new research predicting that cities will be the life blood that surges through the veins of our new economy - whatever or whenever that emerges. I agree with their analysis. The Centre for Cities is an excellent organisation and should be applauded for trying to quantify the success or otherwise of different UK cities.

You can find their report at; Cities Outlook 2012 I tend to agree with the main aim of the results - that education is an important key to success. But I agree that we musts not fall into the trap of calling up-skilling a silver bullet. In my view there are no silver bullets in regeneration, where everything is connected to everything else. It's only through thoughtful and consistent resolution of complex problems that the fortunes of these places will improve. Bilbao is an excellent lesson in this. They did not do one thing - they did many things, all linked to growth and improvement of the lives of the people.

However, in looking at the the Centre for Cities top four and bottom four cities - those tipped to succeed and those tipped to decline - I couldn't help thinking about other factors that will set the future for these places.

Cities to watch from Centre for Cities report 2012

It is clear that London and Edinburgh have more chance than Aberdeen and Milton Keynes - or is it? (I'd say that's something to do with scale, access, mix of industries and location.) Similarly, if you look at the challenged cities you will see other disparities.

Cities with challenges from Centre for Cities report 2012

I am willing to bet that any of these challenged cities could prosper over the next ten years. So what will do it? I agree that education and retraining is vital, but access, facilities and development are also important. The study that I made of Bilbao in 2008 revealed that all these had been improved at the same time because of a dynamic set of circumstances that didn't all relate to finance.

It was political change, optimism and autonomy that did the trick for Bilbao I think. It's interesting to note that all the cities in the challenged list play second fiddle to somewhere nearby. This may indeed be a problem for Milton Keynes as well, which is too close for comfort to London and Northampton. The one is just really big and successful, the other has had tons of regeneration money pumped into it over the years and must be a competitor for land development.

The clincher for Bilbao was the designation of the Basque Region in 1978 as an autonomous region. Franco had died and there followed a political optimism which I have observed always occurs after a periods of political repression. In addition the city became a city region, which meant that it had control over its hinterland. (Something which the French have initiated as well in the development of the aglomerations.)

If you want to read more about Bilbao see Bilbao- The Redefinition of Tourism in my original essay of 2008. There is also a set of images of Bilbao in the photo library - top right of this blogpage.

So what one thing could the five challenged cities do to change their fortunes?

DoncasterDoncaster is fantastically well connected by road and rail. It should take over all the land between the M62, M18 and the A1M and declare a sort of green UDI - linking its historic city, its manufacturing land with its very beautiful rural hinterland. Instead of high density, rather dour urban development, it should become a garden city. That would distinguish it suitably from its neighbours Sheffield and Leeds/Bradford.

HullHull has always looked to the sea and should do so again. Imports from dynamic Denmark, Netherlands and Flanders should be cultural, social and economic.

SunderlandSunderland is a tricky one and should probably look at growth without increase. Demolish the redundant industrial zones and progressively clear underused suburban housing estates. It too, like Hull should look towards the use if its port - that fantastic inland sheltered harbour must have some new use whether it be sportive, touristic or industrial. It's success could also benefit from liaison with Newcastle (just as Gateshead has done.) I can see Sunderland becoming Newcastle on Sea - but then South Shields may have something to say about that!

The success of the North Eastern RDA, compared to some, may have some lessons here. The RDA was a well funded administration that covered all these close knit cities and towns. Their future success will comein forming a constellation of complimentary not competing places.

Swansea and NewportI've linked Swansea and Newport together because they have both suffered from playing second and third fiddle to Cardiff. Sadly the Welsh autonomy had little effect upon the fortunes of these towns. I can't say whether that was because of their own ineffectiveness, or because they were not given the level of autonomy that Scotland possesses. South Wales, with it's sheltered Southern coastline and low housing costs should be a sinch for attracting the grey pound. But the towns have always been fiercely independent, a bit like Bilbao. Somehow that pride of place has not transformed into a welcoming atmosphere. Instead South Wales, despite its good road and rail connections to the rest of the UK seems isolated. So perhaps for South Wales there needs to be a cultural flowering. There needs to be a realisation of Wales' place in the UK and the world. I guess this will come from confidence in its own identity. These towns need to be truely welcoming to outsiders (in the way that Bilbao has been) whether they be tourists, new settlers, or businesses. For, as my article about Bilbao shows, today's tourists are tomorrows investors.

January 16, 2009

I visited Freiburg over the New Year and the information I picked up was very rich. You will see quite a few blogs on the new developments there over the next few weeks I guess. Something one of our traffic engineers said before I went away made me think quite a bit about street widths. Here is a tram in a really narrow street in Antwerp. So don't tell me that you need a really wide street for a tram! (You know who you are.)

We measured this street out as 6m wide - and you can see that a good metre and a half each side is the footpath. So a tram takes up about 3m. (If you look very closely you will see my dog Astrid waiting at the side!) Yes and cars are allowed down here as well - but woe betide them if they try and park.

However a thorough-fare for all types of traffic needs to be designed differently. Vaubanalle in Frieburg, is the main road that runs through the Eco suburb of Vauban.

This street is 35m wide. Download the info sheet for a detailed section and more images. What's really interesting is the fact that the roadway section - two way traffic and a line of parking - is only 6m wide while the pedestrian/cycle track is also 6m wide. Designing cities for cycles does not seem to mean less tarmac unfortunately. But it does mean a different balance between car uses and other uses.

December 27, 2006

, almost sun-set, on an icy but crystal clear winters afternoon I was interrupted in my quiet reading by Astrid, our mini schnauzer, who suddenly began to growl her âI spy strangersâ alarm.On nipping to the balcony I was just in time to see four sleek black boats drifting in formation â each one accommodating a well wrapped up couple.In one an accordionist and a tenor standing in the bows were serenading their audience as the gondolas progressed down the

Grande

Canal

towards the Piazza San Marco becoming pink in the low afternoon sun.

For I was in Venice and in what other place in the world would such a beautiful and romantic event occur and not seem at best out of place and at worst tackily touristy.But here is seemed like the most normal of mid-winter pastimes.

This web guide is partial in all senses of the word.That is I will leave a lot out, but what I do include will be there because I have personally found it to be interesting.Sometimes I will draw your attention to the history or to great art and architecture.But unlike many writers I am just as interested in the modern

Venice

.But at all times I try to highlight the authentic, whether it be serious, ancient, amusing or modern.

A tourist visiting any city will tend to bedirected to its history â and in

Venice

that history is extraordinarily rich.But culture is a continuing process.Of course I want to tell you about why Gondolas are the shape that they are.Have you observed yet that they are unsymmetrical?But I think you might also be just as interested to note how modern transport works in the city â how the rubbish is collected and how the police get around.

For in spite of being an historic city which welcomes countless tourists all year round,

Venice

is also a place where people live, work, learn, fall in love and die.A Cup of Coffee in the Square will be a personal introduction to the cities of the world, getting beyond the normal tourist sights and giving some clues to what it might be like to live in them.

Notes

I’m a qualified architect and town planner, an urbanist, a writer and a thinker.
I work freelance throughout the UK for major developers, communities, government, local authorities and NGO’s, advising and project managing.
I believe that we are being forced to change our attitudes and values. I predict that the simpler, greener, low energy lifestyle will fast become the most desirable and the most economical way to live. Documenting that change and signalling how we might make it is the subject of this blog